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DONAHUE Tammy G From: TAYLOR Dennis M Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:34 PM To: *Eugene Employees Cc: MILLER Dawna A Subject: Shared Values Putting principle into practice-a renewed look at our City's values Anew year has begun. Days are lengthening. Individual and organizational renewal abounds. Great things have happened in this first month of 2004. Eugene weathered its worst winter storm in years, and the City responded with dispatch, dedication and energy. I was so impressed with the manner in which we handled this unexpected and rare winter snow and ice event. The Downtown Library celebrated its first birthday in the company of hundreds of its appreciative customers. Mayor Torrey delivered his State of the City Address, articulating his priorities for 2004 and highlighting 2003 accomplishments (www.ci.eu~ene.or.us). Eugene's new Police Chief, Robert Lehner, was sworn in and is already hard at work. Recently, the community observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day with an enthusiastic march along newly-renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and a moving celebration at the Hult Center. As we honor Dr. King's legacy and look toward the future of this organization, I am reminded of his words: "If you want to move people, it has to be toward a vision that's positive for them, that taps important values, that gets them something they desire, and it has to be presented in a compelling way that they feel inspired to follow." Just as individuals are motivated and guided by personal values, successful organizations are motivated bywell-articulated values and principles that serve to inspire and guide their work. The City of Eugene's adopted values and operating principles were recently reviewed and reaffirmed by the executive and division managers and an updated version was presented at the two all-employee meetings in December. (\\cesrv500\cmoall\values2004.pdf) This new version takes a fresh view of familiar key concepts, including customer service, integrity, honesty, respect, teamwork, communication, professionalism, ethics and accountability. It provides us with a framework for working together to achieve the organization's vision and goals and to contribute to the vitality, safety, and livability of our community. Knowing who we are, the enduring values we work from, and our aspirations about who we want to become in and for the community is vitally important. Our values provide the framework for us all to make clear and good decisions. That is why we ask that you help us ensure that we have identified the values that should guide our work. Our organizational values and operating principles remain a living, working document. With the help of Human Resources staff, we will continue to consider our organizational values and operating principles in work groups throughout the City organization in the coming months. Beginning in late March, division managers will receive tools to encourage thoughtful employee group discussions. The discussions will be based on scenarios that explore the concepts and help create shared understanding of what they mean and how they apply to our daily work. Division managers will initiate those structured work group discussions between April and June. In the meantime, I encourage you all to give the values and principles some thought and take advantage of opportunities to talk about them with coworkers. Our relationships, our work and our conduct create organizational success. We have a shared responsibility to conduct ourselves in a way that earns the community's continued support, and that creates a work environment where we can each be productive and successful. Clarity about our values gives us the capacity to respond intelligently in the moment and to choose actions that are congruent. We must have the right values, communicate them throughout the organization and, most importantly, we must make them come to life by our 1 _ _ _